


Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

by tielan



Category: Justice League & Justice League Unlimited (Cartoons), Justice League - All Media Types
Genre: Episode S03E12 The Once And Future Thing - Part 1, F/M, First Time, Missing Scene, Sex, relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 13:04:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/357107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There was a chasm of difference between affection and desire, and another chasm between knowing what she wanted from him and being able to let him give it to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even Cowgirls Get The Blues

**Author's Note:**

> Written in 2005.

Diana flopped down on the bed, rolling over as she tried to find the most comfortable way of lying down in the dress.

After a few, futile minutes of breathing soft velvet and silk lace, she realised there was none.

Sighing, she sat up, and felt the hoops of the crinoline settle behind her.

In the mirror, her reflection scowled at her, an odd expression on her face. It was all _his_ fault.

Bruce had told her two things before the group split up for their respective rooms to get changed for the evening.

The first one was, “Behave, princess.”

Diana was more than a little miffed at that, as though she were some child to act up at the first opportunity. Yes, some of the customs of the time were tiresome, but she had not flaunted them any more than absolutely necessary.

She worked alongside the men, dressed as them, and pulled her own weight (and much more besides). She ‘gave no lip’ as the phrase went, even when the other men leered at her. Over the years, she’d learned that there were times and places when she could speak out, and other times and places when to do so was more of a hindrance than a help.

This was one of the places where taking all the freedoms available to her would be very unhelpful so she didn’t press the point when the men bridled at her company, and let her team-mates defend her and her strength speak for itself.

So she’d been annoyed by Bruce’s apparent distrust of her ability to stay in line with the customs of the time.

The second order was, “Wear the dress.

Even more than the injunction to behave, Diana objected to the dress.

The corset had taken five minutes to get on over the chemise. The crinoline was heavy and unwieldy, and although the dress was nice, it was _big_. Oh, it fitted perfectly - and one of these days she was going to ask Bruce some very pertinent questions about how he knew her dress size so exactly - but the skirts went out and out and out and there were ruffles, frills, lace, and petticoats like you wouldn’t believe.

Diana had been brought up on an island where the most formal outfit was a tunic and cloak over a long skirt and sandals.

Even the jeans and shirts of Man’s World took mere moments to change in and out of, and whoever had invented bras had been either a genius or a mysogynist. Diana still wasn’t sure which.

This outfit was definitely the creation of a mysogynist.

It bound, pushed, squeezed, confined, and covered without mercy, and Diana knew she was already most of the way towards having the figure this contraption required. How an ordinary woman might survive it....

And there was no comfortable way to do anything but sit or stand!

 _Wait a moment,_ she thought, suddenly remembering one salient point about the order in which the maid had helped her into the clothing. _This ‘crinoline’ is separate to the dress and the corset. I don’t need to take the outer or inner layers off in order to remove it - and that’s all that’s really causing me discomfort..._

It took her several tries to haul the back of the dress up to her waist, but she managed it, and when the hoops collapsed on the floor and she stepped out of them, she sighed in abject relief.

The hoops skittered across the floor as she kicked them away, and with another sigh, she flopped back down on the bed, lying comfortably across the patchworked covers.

And even that respite was brief.

“Don’t do that, Princess, you’ll crush the dress.”

She didn’t bother asking how he’d gotten in so quietly. The window was open to let in the cool evening breeze, and Batman was the master of the silent entrance - and equally silent exit. Instead, Diana opened one eye to regard him, standing by the window with a smirk of amusement on his face.

“If you’d had to wear this all night, Bruce, you’d have been just as eager to lie down once you got away from everyone.”

“It wouldn’t suit me half as well as it does you,” he said, and she turned her head towards the voice, squinting into the darkness. He certainly wasn’t wearing the suit he’d worn earlier that evening - the trousers, coat and waistcoat of a fine gentleman. No, this was closer to his outfit as Batman: dark shirt, dark trousers, and a fold of material over his eyes as a mask. “Going out patrolling?”

“It’s not Gotham,” he said, and in his voice she heard the echo of his loss of the city he’d made his own, “but it’s better than nothing at all.”

She rolled over, sitting up to look at him. “We’ll get home,” she assured him.

“I know we will,” he said in answer. But Diana sensed that something in him still yearned for the city that claimed him for her own as fiercely as he claimed it his own. “I was going to ask if you wished to join me this evening.”

The invitation was surprising at two levels: firstly, Bruce never invited anyone to join him in patrolling his city, and secondly, the social patterns of the day had seemed to indicate a very strong gender segregation. There were some things women simply did not do - as Diana had already had reason to complain of.

He smirked. “If someone has heard us talking here, your reputation is already in tatters, Princess. The kind of woman who’d have a man not her husband in her room at this time is not a respectable woman.”

Diana smiled as she eased herself and the dress to the edge of the bed. “And I am not the respectable type?” She indicated the dove-grey material of the gown, the soft lace at throat and wrist, the black lace-up boots that protruded from beneath the skirt. “Judging by the clothing worn by certain other ladies this evening, I would say this dress is most definitely the respectable kind.”

She indicated the dress; the bodice that clearly showed the swell of her breasts, but didn’t flaunt them the way other ladies’ dresses had, the fine dove-grey silk over skirts that billowed out in panels, the hand-spun lace that edged everything. It wasn’t a ‘cheap’ dress, for all that it had been produced in the space of a day.

“Oh, the dress is respectable,” Bruce said. For a moment, his eyes glimmered with a playboy’s mischief as he looked her up and down, appreciatively. “It looks good on you. And I don’t think anyone would doubt that you’re a very respectable woman, Princess.” Blue eyes twinkled. “If they did, they’d keep it to themselves.”

Diana’s own sense of mischief bloomed, tinged with not a little pique at his last prod. “Good,” she said, meeting his gaze with a smile. “Because I need your help to take the very respectable dress _off_ , Bruce.”

*

She was pleased to see he couldn’t _always_ control his instincts. Her words caused him to tense, as though she’d struck him. A moment later he relaxed in body, but the voice that issued from beneath the mask was hard with warning. With warning and thwarted desire? “Princess...”

She grinned, pleased at having provoked him. “In truth, I do need your help with the dress,” she said, climbing to her feet and turning around to present him with the sight of a long row of buttons down the back of the bodice. “I won’t be getting out of this myself without shredding the dress.”

In the mirror of the dresser she now faced, his expression had stilled behind the mask. His eyes seemed a depthless blue by the light of the candle that was all the illumination in the room and the only movement he made was the flexing of his fingers by his sides. Finally, he moved, crossing the room in swift, sure steps until he stood behind her.

The material shifted around her waist and hips as his legs pressed against the skirt of the dress, drawing close enough to be able to undo the buttons in question. “I’ve never played lady’s maid before,” he commented as his fingers reached for the top button.

“Would it be that different from playing a ladies’ man?” Diana inquired archly, turning her head a little so she could see him out of the corner of her eye.

A smile touched his mouth as he bent his face down to attend to the bodice buttons, but he made no return sally. The warmth of his fingers at her nape sent a shiver down her spine, but she held herself perfectly still with careful self-control and watched him in the mirror.

Something in her wondered if another woman had watched Bruce Wayne as he undid the zipper at her spine. Her curiosity pondered if the stranger woman’s pulse had quietly stuttered when hot fingers brushed her skin, if she had watched him standing over her shoulder, with the protective intimidation that was second nature to him.

Her body only knew she desired him and heated at the thought.

As he undid the buttons one by one, Diana felt the press of the material loosen around her body, and could have sighed for the removal of the confining fabric. The corset still restrained her, but the corset only confined her torso. The rest of her was free.

“You’re done,” he said, turning away, although not before she saw the faint sheen of sweat across his upper lip.

Mischief pricked within her again, and she stepped out of the folds of clothing so she could pick up the dress. “I don’t suppose you’d care to help with the corset as well,” she asked lightly as she tossed the dress over the chair.

The quality of the silence behind her made her look up. In the cool reflection of the glass, the heat in his gaze closed her throat and clenched her fingers around the petticoats.

“Bruce?”

It couldn’t be her state of undress; he’d seen her in her uniform before and what she wore now revealed no more skin than that. And Bruce wasn’t any other man, to let his desire have control of him.

He approached her after a few tense seconds, and his form was dark and shadowy at her spine. But it wasn’t the sight of him that caused her to rest her hands carefully against the dresser top; instead, the softness of his voice stroked along her senses, prickling the fine hairs at her nape with his breath. “It’s not a matter of caring, Diana.”

He wasn’t just talking about the corset.

Long-fingered hands gathered up the corset, the boned panels of canvas, and eased it over her hips to fall unheeded on the floor.

He didn’t move away.

In the mirror, Diana saw her reflection like a vision. The pale sheen of the chemise clung to her body, slipping over the lace-edged panties visible beneath the translucent material, and caressing the tops of the smoke-coloured stockings she still wore.

Almost involuntarily, his hand lifted from her waist, brushed lightly over the tip of one breast, the dark circle of the nipple visible, even in the dim light. She felt his fingers briefly shape the flesh, gasped lightly and heard him curse beneath his breath as he took his hand away.

Their eyes tangled in the glass.

Bruce gave no apology for his actions, but neither did he reach out again, although she saw his fingers twitch.

Slowly, as though he might startle into flight, Diana lifted one hand to tug the material of the mask from his head. The cloth came away in a single, smooth motion, revealing the broad lofty span of his forehead and the deep blue of his eyes. He made no protest, but watched her. And they stood there, silent, with only the sound of their breathing in the pooling black night.

The seconds crawled by, over her skin, prickling moments that tickled the fine hairs of her body, making each one stand up erect. His eyes swept her chemise-clad body, once, twice, thrice, then met her gaze again. Each breath rasped through his throat; she could feel his heart hammering, just beyond her back.

Nothing was said.

Diana knew Bruce. At this moment, two instincts were warring within him.

One was the human instinct, the desire to take, ravish, consume; the other was the Batman instinct, the need to step away, deny, abstain.

She watched him struggle, and didn’t know which instinct would win. She didn’t know which instinct she _wanted_ to win.

If Bruce could not move, Diana would have to. And she would have to choose to break away.

His desire was one thing, his integrity another. She would not incite his desire if the cost was his honour; her own honour forbade it.

Nothing. No movement, no encouragement, no change. Diana closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Cold swept over her soul as she turned away from him; she had attempted and she had lost her chance. There would be nothing more between them.

Hot fingers on her arm stopped her from moving more than a few inches.

In his eyes, desire gleamed, candlelit.

Then, without a word, he lowered his mouth to her shoulder, bare but for the thin silk of her chemise. His actions were deliberate, with the careful control he practised every moment, and she shuddered as she felt his lips move over her skin, butterflies of sensation fluttering through every nerve in her body.

His fingers slid to her waist as his kisses trailed their way up her throat and she turned her head so mouth met mouth with blinding heat. Their kiss sizzled in her veins, fizzed across her skin, the taste of him in her mouth, the scent of him in her nostrils - more intoxicating than the grapes of Elysium.

Diana felt weak, physically weak.

Panic reared in her, and she broke the kiss but didn’t break out from his arms.

Playing with fire was one thing; this was an inferno.

And, in the darkest recesses of her mind, something wondered if she dared give this man what she had withheld from every other man on the face of the planet or beyond it - even Clark.

His voice was soft, like fingers at her cheek. “Diana?”

She rested her face against his, panting and feeling his breaths, deep and shuddering, against her cheek. “I’m fine, Bruce.” She was an Amazon. They feared nothing.

Nothing.

Then why was she shivering in the circle of his arms?

*

Bruce was shocked to find he’d misjudged her badly.

As she tilted back her head, giving him access to her throat, he’d believed the questions between them were answered, that the matter was settled. She had made it plain enough that she was interested, all that remained was his acceptance of that interest.

He’d held off this long.

There were factors in his final capitulation. He was well aware of them and could reel them off like a grocery list. The absence of his city and the demands she made of him - a mistress more demanding than any human woman. The rigidity of the society they were in, into which Diana fit as comfortably as the proverbial square peg in a round hole. The clothing she wore, the modesty of the manner she’d adopted, the teasing note in her voice as she invited him to take off the dress...

Now she quivered in his arms, like a wild creature caught and waiting for the moment to flee.

Understanding drowned him with cold shock, but he spoke softly, “You’ve never done this before.”

She looked at him, the truth naked in her eyes, and the fingers of his soul clenched about the reins of his desire, hauling it back.

Bruce was man enough to exult in her trust. He was also man enough to fear that he might not be able to please her. And he was friend enough to know how delicate was the bridge between desire and consummation of it. For all her physical and emotional strength, this was new territory, something she had never done. For all his intelligence, for all his preparations, for all that he knew she was a virgin coming from a race made up entirely of women, it had never occurred to him that she would need gentle handling.

For once, he wished fervently for the rapacious sexual experience legendary in Bruce Wayne. At least with that arsenal at his command, he would have been more certain of his ability to satisfy.

Then again, the heavy charm and sensual pushiness of Wayne would only cause her to retreat. And retreat was the last thing he wanted from her.

There was a chasm of difference between affection and desire, and another chasm between knowing what she wanted from him and being able to let him give it to her.

Bruce could have let her go. It was within his self-control to open his arms and let her walk away if she’d wanted. He didn’t want to. Now that he’d touched her, tasted her so eager in his mouth, without deceit or qualification or necessity, he was surprised how much he didn’t want to let her walk away.

_Go gently._

“Bruce...”

He laid a finger across her lips. “Shhh...”

There weren’t words between them. No promises to break, no lies to be said. Nothing but honest desire.

He kissed her lightly, shifting around so they stood face to face, so he wouldn’t have to twist to reach her mouth. She might be superhuman, he was not.

It was nothing more than a kiss, unprompted by necessity, without deceit in mind. They weren’t on the run from anyone, trying to hide from anything, and there would be no calls from city or Watchtower to interrupt them.

He had all night to seduce her, to take things slow, to ease her into comfortable acceptance of the physicality of sex between a man and a woman - so different from any sapphic experience she might have had before or since she left her island. Sensuality and sexuality was not the issue here. Neither were trust or caring.

She still trembled, but there was eagerness in her kisses. In a little while, hunger would override fear, when he had her impaled on the knife-edge of desire, but not yet. Soon.

All night.

The pins holding up her hair were pulled out, one to a kiss, tossed to the dresser to clatter on the wood until he could run his fingers through her hair. The buttons to his shirt were undone, one by one, fingertips tracing the scars beneath the cloth, and the trail of her fingertips over his shoulders and back tingled faintly, like magic or the first signs of anoxia.

_Remember to breathe._

She had her hands inside his collar, curling around his throat as they broke apart, watching each others’ eyes. Diana smiled, tremulously, and his heart hitched unsteadily in his chest. His breath caught as she ran her hands lightly down his chest, stroking scars as though they were beautiful instead of the ugly, marring things they were.

He was suddenly aware of his humanity, of his mortality and the insignificance of his life in her span of hers. Beneath the chemise that misted her skin, veiling breast and waist and hip, she was perfect. Perfect skin, perfect figure, strength and intelligence, beauty and breeding - a goddess in the flesh.

_Alas the moon should never beam upon what man was not meant to see..._

The words rose up from somewhere within him, and he nearly pushed her away. He was the Batman, a creature of the night, secretive, bad-tempered, and solitary.

He was also a man who had the most beautiful woman half-naked in his arms, and touching him like he was beautiful, too.

Bruce was only human.

He took her mouth back, possessive, but not overbearing. Teasing her, leading her on with gentle inexorability, small nips along her jaw, down her throat, across her collarbone.

And all the while, her hands explored him, her palms searching out the span of his chest, laying her hands flat against his pectorals as she leaned into him.

It came to him as his hands slipped down over her hips, drawing her against him, against the fierce hard heat of his arousal. She gasped a little, turning her head, and her hand brushed by his hip, as if she’d moved to touch him, then changed her mind.

It was the differences between them that intrigued her most, woman to man, matrix to seal, male to female, yang to yin. Whatever lovers she’d had before this, they’d been like her, curves and hollows rather than planes and angles.

Then again, given the build of the Amazons he’d seen, who knew?

Still, he could be quite safely certain that there was at least one thing he had that no woman did.

Gently, Bruce bit her exposed throat as he caught her arm and slid his fingers down the soft inner skin until he reached her wrist. And he watched her face as he drew her down to touch his erection through the light cotton weave of the dark trousers he’d commandeered for the evening.

Her hand settled over the protruding flesh, and he hissed lightly - the merest breath of anticipated excitement. She glanced up at him, surprised. “Sensitive?”

“You have no idea,” he husked dryly, and hissed again as her fingers closed around him firmly. “Diana...”

There was nothing quite as delicious as the smile that stole across her mouth. “I like it when you say my name like that.”

He could be amused at the feminine delight she took in his ‘weakness’ - he’d seen it before in the women he’d bedded. There was something in every woman that revelled in the control she held over a man in the throes of desire; not necessary cruelty, often, just satisfaction that a man otherwise her superior had one irrepressible weak spot.

“I like it when you touch me like that,” he replied, and kissed her again, long and slow and heated. Fire was licking at his groin now, dizzying his senses as her fingers explored the weave around his cock, and each touch pulsed in his blood.

Bruce pulled back. Dangerous to get too involved in these sensations. It had been a while since he’d had a partner for sex; getting off in the shower was simple release, but he disdained to fantasise while doing it, and it had none of the sensuality present at this moment. It had none of the tenderness of her touch.

“Bruce?”

“Don’t go too fast, Princess,” he murmured, savouring the curve of breast weighting down his hand, the pert tip that invited his mouth to partake of its sweetness. “I’m only human.”

He kissed her through the chemise, and grinned against the curve of breast as she thrust her hand into his hair, fingers flexing around the curve of his head. “O...only h...human, Bruce?” Her laugh was breathy and choked. “You?”

His mouth was too full of nipple to dare an answer.

The chemise was in the way. He lifted his mouth from her breast and tugged at the hem of the garment. “Off.”

“Erudite, aren’t we?” But she lifted her arms and let him draw the chemise off. And let him kiss her once it was off.

“The human body only has eight pints of blood in it, Princess,” he murmured against her mouth. “And when a man is aroused, it tends to mean there’s less of it to work the brain.”

“And so I am proved wrong by you again,” Diana laughed. As they kissed, her hips shifted tentatively against his. Bruce grabbed her hips and held her still. Even her slight, uncertain movements against him were causing his head to swim. “Am I distracting you, Bruce?”

She was always a distraction to him; it was one of the reasons he considered her dangerous to him, personally. But to say all that now would be a little too much honesty for the moment.

Instead, he hauled her up over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry, hearing her laughter ring out over his shoulder as he carried her to the bed.

A brief concern assailed him. His presence here was not entirely good for her reputation. And what could be said for her reputation here could go just as well for her reputation back home - to say nothing of the difficulties of carrying on a relationship with a team-mate when he was the Batman.

However, a moment later, he had her set down on the bed, kneeling, half-naked before him on the mattress and reaching for the fastenings of his trousers. Good intentions vanished as she pushed down his trousers, and revealed his erection to the cool night air and the caress of her fingers.

“Let me sit down first,” he husked as she began an unabashed exploration of his cock. It had definitely been a long time since anyone else had touched his body this way - the slightest pressure was winding his body tight with anticipation.

It took him a moment to haul off his boots and socks, and as he kicked his trousers to the floor, he felt her come up behind him and slide her chin over his shoulder. Her breasts pressed against his back, he could feel the nipples brushing against his skin. A moment later, her fingers stole over his hip to cradle the head of his erection between her fingers.

His groin tightened unbearably. Bruce looked at her, at the intent profile staring wonderingly down at the glory - or ridiculousness - of a naked, fully-aroused male. “Like what you see?” He asked, and knew his voice was hoarse with anticipation.

“Intrigued,” she said with customary honesty. Her forefinger and thumb formed a circle and she slid it down around his shaft. Sensation exploded through him and he groaned and blindly reached for her mouth.

There was a smile on her face as he claimed her lips, one hand still caressing his cock, while the other gripped his hip.

Bruce let his fingers steal down her belly, over her abdomen, and into her panties. The slightest brush of his fingers between her thighs, and she was the one to gasp.

He caught her hand in a firm grip and stood, turning towards her and the bed and indicating backwards. “Onto the bed, princess.”

Diana tilted her head at him, a faint smile on her lips. Then, with a deliberate slowness, she leaned forward and took the tip of his cock in her mouth.

Bruce forgot how to breathe.

An ordinary woman would have overbalanced, gravity taking its toll as she leaned too far off the bed. She was far from ordinary.

 _Oh god..._ Her tongue was exquisite on the head of his erection, tasting him with tentative caution and innocent delicacy.

He was barely thinking when he gripped her shoulders and hauled her up. For a man so accustomed to control, to reason, to thinking things through so carefully, she was deadly, especially in the innocence of her exploration.

Her hands slid firmly around his neck as he kissed her with hot ferocity. And she kissed him back with all the passion he’d ever seen her give to a fight against an enemy. Yes, she was inimical to his senses, deadly to his purpose, but he could no more resist her than steel could resist a magnet.

“I need...” Bruce kissed her again. “...you to do...” Another kiss. “...something for me...” His hands caressed the sides of her breasts, thumbs scraping the nipples lightly, pleased with the way she clung to him, eager for more of his mouth, of his hands.

“Mmm...what?”

He pushed her back towards the bed, and watched her float up, obedient to the guiding of his hands onto the bed. She watched as he tugged at the lace edge of her panties, slid them down over the fine silk stockings that encased long, shapely legs and over the lace-up boots.

The cotton undergarment was tossed somewhere into the room, forgotten in the shadows.

“Lie still,” he instructed her as he began picking at the bootlaces.

She propped herself up on her elbows, blue eyes watching him by the light of the candle. “Bossy tonight, aren’t you?”

He smirked at her and discarded one boot, gently easing it off the slim foot. “You obeyed, though, didn’t you?” Her restraint in dealing with this time displacement was considerable. Then, again, so was his in not laying her down right now and just taking her hard - the way his libido was screaming for him to do.

“You’d have just found some way to enforce it,” she returned, tossing her hair over one perfect shoulder as he disposed of the second boot. “Besides,” Diana murmured, breathing steadily as his fingers slid up the inside of her leg, “Obedience to a command isn’t related to the bossiness of the one giving it.”

He eased himself onto the bed, letting the tips of his fingers rest lightly at her vagina. She was moist already, slick with fluid, and one corner of his mouth quirked as she shifted, accustoming herself to the touch. “If you want me to stop, you have only to say.”

It was impossible to imagine her allowing a man to touch her, take her, pierce her against her will. But he had to be sure. He wanted to be certain of her.

“I don’t want you to stop,” she said, her voice clear and sweet in the darkness of the room. “I want you.” One hand reached out, and her fingers closed around him.

In response, he slid his thumb up from her opening, along the edge of the soft, hot folds to her clitoris and felt her inhale deeply. Her fingers still rested lightly on his body, but more as reassuring contact than an inciting caress. And her eyes held his, deep blue, open and trusting as his thumb moved back and forth across the sensitive nub, gradually arousing her.

More than any kind of physical relief, the trust in her eyes was purest pleasure to him. He was accustomed to giving and receiving distrust; it came easily to him now, an expected response. To have this woman trust him so intimately was a gift that made him physically tremble.

She could kill him with a backhanded slap, delivered with enough force. Physically powerful, emotionally open, sexually untouched - the knowledge of that combination quivered within him.

And she allowed Bruce to caress her, each touch the lightest of grazes against sensitised flesh, gently building the tension within her until she hummed with it beneath his hands and his mouth.

He covered her with kisses from throat to navel, sucking, nipping, licking at the pristine flesh. Something in him longed to leave his mark on her body, to dig his teeth into her skin. He resisted the temptation - just. Marks would be hard for her to explain when they returned and she dressed in her scanty costume.

But there was no resistance against the way she arched when he pressed down hard on the small nub of her flesh. No resistance against the way she claimed his mouth in hot, panting bites, against the way her fingers traced him again until he ordered her hands back flat against the bed. No resistance against the way she whispered his name when he bent and replaced fingers with lips and tongue, working her with delicate care until her fingernails tore the cotton sheets with super-strength, and she begged Bruce with a single word.

“Please.”

*

Diana felt coated in the heat of desire, every nerve alive.

Her body sang for him, yearning for the completion he promised, wanting to be the woman who made him cry out in pleasure and satisfaction. She wanted him to fill her, to possess her in the achingly intimate manner of a man with a woman - so different to the way of the Amazons.

Diana knew about sex. She was neither innocent in mind, nor in body; but her experience so far had been limited to women. A man was an unknown - and an fascinating one at that.

She knew what happened during sex with a man. It did not prepare her for the brief moment of panic she felt when Bruce poised himself over her, the tip of his erection resting in the slight hollow at the entrance to her body.

Her hands flexed against the sheets, involuntarily. The fear of before swept over her, freezing her with a pooling cold in the midst of the fires of want.

_Athena, I feel so exposed._

Perhaps the virgin goddess of war and knowledge was not the wisest choice of deities to petition at this moment, but the momentary plea was heard. A hand touched her cheek, and she looked up into Bruce’s intent gaze, his eyes lambent black in the shimmering candlelight. “Diana?”

She just felt so _vulnerable_.

Amazons spoke of intercourse with a man as something dangerous. Diana could understand that; so much of her people’s history was intertwined with betrayal by men, or by too much involvement in Man’s World. She knew it was prejudice and that she had inherited some of it from her mother and the other Amazons. But surely she’d been long enough in Man’s World to overcome that prejudice?

Bruce was watching her.

The question in his eyes decided her.

 _I will not renege..._ Having offered him this much, it would be dishonourable to back out. A part of her wanted to withdraw, afraid of his masculinity, of the dominance implied in the act of imposition: his body invading hers, claiming her flesh for his own - traditionally, for his pleasure and his seed. But having offered him this much - having accepted this much from him - a part of her wanted to be known in carnal desire by this man, her team-mate, whom she trusted above and beyond almost all others in Man’s World.

“Are you sure?”

She tilted his head up to hers so she could reach his mouth. He had given her this much trust, this much consideration. He had touched her as though she were precious and fragile, with awe in his fingertips and desire in his eyes. He had swelled to her touch, and moaned beneath her caresses, and she had tasted him in pure curiosity and not a little lust.

There was a time for drawing back and a time for stepping forward. She had gone so far as to make stepping back impossible - had she even wished to step back.

Diana wanted him. She trusted him.

“Yes,” she breathed when they came up for air. “I’m sure.”

Instinct made her move against him gently, and his breath rasped in his throat as he pressed into her. The fullness of him felt strangely alien as he slipped into her body. The slowness of his penetration gave her a brief, precious time to adjust to his invasion, and she saw from his eyes that he’d intended it that way.

Diana knew about sex with a man. But no book had ever said how intimate was the melding of bodies - so intimately pressed together, so sweetly fitted. She tilted her head backwards, lolling in the pure pleasure of the sublime sensations, and felt his husky laugh all along her body where they touched.

Lips touched her palm as the cheek beneath her hand turned, and he began to move within her.

Terror briefly gripped her, as the last shreds of her innocence slipped through her fingers, never to be regained. It vanished as other sensations began pouring in, overcoming the last vestiges of her dread.

Earlier, she’d felt the ache of desire unfulfilled, a piercing purity of sensation threading through her groin like a blade, slicing through her thoughts and dizzying her with sheer need. Now, it lanced through her again, sweet and painful - an ache, yes, but a good one, pleasurable with the promise of completion.

He thrust lightly, gently, and her fingers pushed back the hair from his brow, damp with sweat. Delight surged through her and she flattened her other hand over his shoulder as he moved against her - _in_ her - again.

She forgot her earlier fear, forgot her hesitation, forgot that they were far from home and far from their time in history. All she could do was feel him in her, against her; all she could taste was his lips, his sweat; all she could hear was the throb of blood in her veins and their panting breaths; all she could smell was the scent of him mixed with the scent of her, evocative and erotic.

What she wanted, what she yearned for, beckoned, just beyond the horizon of the moment, and she lifted her hips to meet his thrust and moaned in the agony of ecstacy that met the slight change in pressures.

The knife-ache seared through her, blossoming into an exquisite shudder of sensation. She might have cried out as it poured into her - water into the desert, conflagration in the arctic cold - she didn’t know. All she did know was that his mouth was warm and sweet against hers as his flesh plunged into hers again and again.

He shuddered a few moments later. The muffled groan he uttered against her throat might have been her name, but even she could only hear so much through the soft thunder of her blood.

A single drop of sweat slid down the side of his throat and over his shoulder, to land small and damp against Diana’s skin, and continue its journey on towards her navel. As if that one trickling drop had been a sign, she began to regain consciousness of more than just the man who lay in her arms, replete and exhausted.

Outside, in the night, she could hear the jingle of spurs, footsteps in the dust, horses whickering and the occasional shout. Inside the hotel, there was laughter and chatter and noise from downstairs as men and women continued their roistering late into the night.

Inside the room, there was only their heartbeats, drumming in syncopated counterpoint, and the drag of breath in and out of their lungs.

When he finally lifted his head from her shoulder, she traced a line down his face, from temple to cheekbone, along the line of his jaw. “Thank you.”

He shifted up beside her and turned his head to kiss her fingertip. “You’re welcome,” he murmured, and his hand traced the cords of muscle along her neck, resting in the hollow at the base of her throat with an appreciation that warmed her through to her toes, independent of the lassitude that was rapidly overtaking her body.

Still, she had enough energy and mischief in her to turn towards him and tuck her hand beneath her cheek, demure as a vestal virgin. “So, was I good?”

His mouth curved, smiling, as he leaned in to brush his lips past hers with exquisite tenderness. “Definitely.”

*

Staying beside her was a mistake.

He should leave.

There was a world of difference between what a man ‘should’ do and what he could bring himself to do. And even Bruce couldn’t bring himself to climb out of her bed after her first time without so much as an, “I should go.”

Diana was a quiet sleeper. Peaceful. No tossing and turning - not like him and his nightmares.

Just as well he’d never had a wife.

Still, if he could imagine ever sleeping beside a woman all night - Gotham notwithstanding - he’d have liked it to be this one.

_Sentimentalism from the Batman. Who’d have thought?_

As he traced his fingers down her arm again, he reconsidered everything his mind threw at him in the aftermath of sex - all the reasons why he’d given in. Not least of which was that his usual demanding mistress - Gotham City - wasn’t present to interrupt him.

 _You didn’t use her in lieu of Gotham,_ he reminded himself as his fingers trailed over her skin. Stroking his fingers across the velvet of her flesh was like an addiction. _You’ve wanted this for a while. You just never got around to it..._

And he’d ‘gotten around to it’ with a vengeance.

So many reasons he didn’t need entanglements with anyone. So many reasons she didn’t need to get involved with him.

Bruce was beginning to suspect that reason didn’t get much of a look-in when his emotions were involved.

Outside, the sky was just shading to royal blue along the eastern horizon, beyond the hills. A million stars twinkled, their meagre light shortly to be overtaken by the brilliance of another of their kind, much nearer to the planet.

Staying beside her was a mistake. It would be worse to compound that and either be seen moving across the rooftops to his own room from hers, or walking down the corridor from her room to his.

But he wasn’t looking forward to leaving at all.

Bruce sighed to himself and began to climb out of the bed, moving with all the stealthiness he’d learned in years of training, in years of being the Batman. Slow inch by slow inch extracting himself from the tangle of  sheets.

It wasn’t nearly stealthy enough.

“Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?” Diana sounded more amused than outraged.

Turning around and looking at her, all sleepy eyes and bed-hair, wasn’t so good. Not because she looked terrible, but because she didn’t. Dishevelment suited her. “You got lots of goodnight kisses, earlier,” he said lightly, then bent across the bed. “But I think I could manage one more...”

One more turned into two more, and two more turned into a dozen more. Certain parts of his body began suggesting that there was enough time for him to seduce her at least once more before it got too light...

She sighed and broke away from him, turning her face towards the window. “You have to go.” It wasn’t a question. But he saw the sly curve of her mouth in the darkness as she added, “John will be wondering what happened to you.”

Another thing he didn’t particularly want to face: his team-mate’s grilling - especially after the conversation they’d had in the Watchtower common area.

“I’m looking forward to it,” he growled, and she laughed as she brushed her lips past his cheek and lay back down in the bed, pulling up the covers.

He climbed out and picked up his clothing, piece by piece. The sheets rustled as she turned over, and he glimpsed her in the darkened reflection of the mirror.

On instinct, he turned, half-dressed and found her watching him with an oddly resigned look in her eyes, without the intensity or, yes, the appreciation he’d expected.

“Diana?”

Her mouth immediately curved, but even the shadows couldn’t hide the sadness behind it. “I’m enjoying the view.”

He realised what must be bothering her, even as she closed her eyes and shifted in the bed. A moment later, he was sitting back down on the edge of the mattress, leaning over her cotton-swathed form. “Diana...”

She caught the hand that reached for her without ever opening her eyes. Instinct and metahuman senses telling her what her human sense couldn’thave divined. Her fingers were cool and firm and impersonal about his wrist, but her voice was wry, “No dating for the Batman, remember?”

The words had been hers, teasing his standoffishness months ago. He’d been trying to keep her at arm’s length, for her sake as well as his, and the events of the night had knocked all hope of that awry. It was a little obvious when he sacrificed his dignity in exchange for her return to human form.

Circe had done them one favour at least; she’d shown them how vulnerable and yet how dependant they were on each other.

“It may be a bit late for dating,” he admitted, pulling his wrist from her grip and enfolding her hand in his own. He was more than a little afraid of what he was doing - his love-affairs never ended well. Andrea Beaumont sprung to mind.

But having come this far, he’d be damned if one night was all he was going to get of her. The thought was rather more Bruce Wayne than Batman, but he wasn’t sure which he was in her presence: she blurred the lines he’d kept distinct for others - for himself.

So he tugged at her hand, knowing that if she didn’t want to come to him, she’d resist, trusting that she did.

Even an Amazon reluctant to be kissed couldn’t entirely evade a man she didn’t want to hurt.

Under his mouth, her lips were unyielding at first, but he persisted, gently coaxing her to respond. There was no demand in his touch, demand would have only gotten his ass kicked, instead he asked of her, pleading without words. Self-sacrifice could go to hades, he wanted this and so did she - the hands that curled around his throat and into his hair were proof of that.

Still, she was the one to break the kiss again. “You have to go.”

“We’re not finished,” he warned gently.

“I know,” and she smiled then. “I’m counting on it.” A small push indicated the window. “Now, go.”

He stole another kiss before hauling on his shirt and climbing out the window, light as the shadows in which he customarily hid.

Not too soon, either. Already, the world was developing indistinct shapes, within thirty minutes he would have been clearly visible up on the rooftops. Not his idea of subtlety.

Then again, John’s question when he got into their room was, “Respected collagues, huh?”


End file.
